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Russia Invades Ukraine, Fashion Week Carries On
Business imperatives and moralistic stances don’t often complement one another.
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Like many, I’m having a hard time absorbing anything in the news aside from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. My social media feeds are set up so that I can monitor the fashion industry and adjacent celebrity stuff, making my current media diet a bizarre mix of images of Armani Privé red carpet dresses, fashion people dressed up at fashion week, and ghastly, unthinkable scenes of war. It is a jarring juxtaposition. While refugees flee, soldiers and civilians die, and families are torn apart, fashion people luxuriate in mental gymnastics over what to post during this crisis, and the runway shows continue. Milan Fashion Week has ended and Paris has started, but if you just landed in a front row seat from outer space, you would probably have no idea a war was raging not that far away. (“What fashion is doing now” is a footnote to this war and the unfolding crisis, but fashion is my beat as a journalist and I recognize that that is what you are here to read about.)
People will debate whether or not Fashion Week As Usual is the right thing to do. I suspect many feel that fashion shows and the arts broadly should continue with just some exceptions because giving Russian President Vladimir Putin the power to bring such creative pursuits to their knees also doesn’t feel like the right thing to do.
But the feeling that the usual order of things is not quite right at this moment has led some in the industry to change their plans. Giorgio Armani made headlines for showing his spring 2022 collection without music as “a sign of respect” for Ukraine. What that accomplishes aside from him looking like not an ass hole, I don’t know. On the other hand, the Wall Street Journal reported that in Milan:
…a planned anniversary dinner for the cult-y German skincare brand Augustinus Bader was canceled “in solidarity with all the innocent people whose lives have been impacted,” said Charles Rosier, the company’s chief executive and co-founder. The funds intended for the dinner will be reallocated to Unicef, which is providing humanitarian aid to families on the ground.
The nature of online activism means that there may not be a backlash-free way for a fashion company or influencer to approach this. Saying nothing could be called insensitive, even though influencers and brands know people follow them not for updates or opinions on these kinds of news events, but rather an escape from them. Posting about the war in Ukraine will likely lead to questions of why an influencer or brand doesn’t channel statements and fundraising efforts to all the world’s other humanitarian crises such as the ongoing one in Afghanistan where parents are selling their kidneys to feed their children. We’re usually fine with public figures and brands cherrypicking causes to support (i.e. Leonardo DiCaprio and the climate crisis; Vogue and the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute). But with something like the war in Ukraine dominating Western media the way it is, that approach becomes unacceptable to many.
These litmus tests of social acceptability are prolific and therefore impossible to universally pass. This is why fashion brands that have made a big show of becoming inclusive over the past couple of years probably feel like they’re in a bind right now.
Considering what fashion companies can do “in a concrete way” to take a stance on the war, Imran Amed takes the logical stance in Business of Fashion that the industry can and should be doing more, even if what it can do is “largely symbolic”:
For one, it can happen through seriously re-evaluating the industry’s engagement with Russia. This is neither simple to execute nor an easy decision to make, but the ultra-rich in Russia are already being impacted by international sanctions and restrictions on having their private jets fly through European air space, so why not cut off access to luxury goods, too? Brands could close their Russian shops and decline to ship products to Russia from their online stores. As Russia only represents two to three percent of the global luxury fashion market, this would be a largely symbolic move, but it would still show a commitment to a strong moral position.
He added:
Carlo Capasa, head of Italy’s Camera della Moda, told me on Sunday that at the start of the week, nobody expected the crisis to escalate so quickly. He underscored the importance of humanity and peace above all else and said Italian brands are thinking of some kind of collective action. He also strongly denied that the trade body had pushed for a carve-out for luxury goods on sanctions placed on Russia by the EU, as has been reported in the British press. But for now, it seems luxury brands can still ship goods to Russia.
After so much pressure over the last few years for fashion to stand for something, now that a time has come for it to, you know, STAND FOR SOMETHING, the industry seems unsure of what to do. If a decision has been made to proceed as normal, surely that is for reasons brands could explain to their followers. But it could also be that business imperatives and moralistic stances don’t often complement one another, and while a small amount of progress in the industry has been made when it comes to inclusivity, fashion still has not figured out its role in the broader landscape of progressive social values to which it professes to belong. Even if “we oppose war” is hardly that progressive of a value!
It’s not as if fashion is incapable of acting quickly and decisively. Notre Dame burned on April 15, 2019. A post on the LVMH site dated April 16, 2019 reads:
The Arnault family and the LVMH Group, in solidarity with this national tragedy, are committed to assist with the reconstruction of this extraordinary cathedral, symbol of France, its heritage and its unity.
They will donate a total sum of 200 million euros to the fund dedicated to the reconstruction of this architectural work, which is a core part of the French History.
In the meantime, the LVMH Group puts at the disposal of the State and the relevant authorities all its teams – including creative, architectural and financial specialists – to help with the long work of reconstruction and fundraising, which is already in progress.
As of Wednesday morning, I see nothing in the LVMH site’s “news” section about Ukraine. However, a press release concerning financial results dated January 27, 2022 is headlined, “New records for LVMH in 2021.” In a New York Times story about cultural institutions now distancing themselves from Russia, LVMH gets a mention:
Not all cultural exchanges have been sundered. A blockbuster show of French and Russian paintings at the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris remains open.
The exhibit — showcasing 200 works collected by two 20th-century Russian textile magnates — grew out of high-level discussions between President Emmanuel Macron of France, Mr. Putin and the chief executive of LVMH, Bernard Arnault. Both leaders signed contributions to the exhibit’s catalog, and Mr. Putin signed off on loans for the paintings.
I use LVMH as an example because it’s one of the world’s richest, most powerful fashion companies. If they took action, that would likely inspire more decisive moves from others, like rival Kering. In fact, the Arnaults donated to Notre Dame only after Kering chairman and CEO François-Henri Pinault announced a 100 million euro donation. (This kicked off a donating spree among French companies amounting to nearly 1 billion euros.) Surely, leaders of both companies understand that a lot more will burn in Ukraine than a single church.
LVMH is also a company that won’t take a stance on fur, even though their competitors at Kering and much of the fashion industry have banned it. Based on recent financial results, that stance — which many would consider a moral failing — isn’t exactly hurting them. It’s worth remembering that the Notre Dame restoration charity was met with backlash that Arnault ended up publicly responding to. From Reuters:
“It’s an empty controversy,” Arnault said. “It’s pretty dismaying to see that in France you are criticized even for doing something for the general interest.”
People were mad that this much money could so easily be found in the Arnault coffers to fix an old monument, while human beings suffering in France and beyond went ignored. Getting the Ukraine response wrong in the eyes of the public might seem like a worse prospect to these fashion companies than doing nothing at all.
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